I
quickly type this out already hours late to my temp gig at the Nordstrom's
product office downtown, where I am using every iota of self-discipline
to even finish this week out (for this damn thing called rent, or
something) because the managers there are protester-bashing idiots!
I was there, too, last week, for every damn day of it, and
it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen! I was there
on Monday when the French Farmer Bouvet (msp?) talked atop a bus
parked in an intersection the people took over and an impromptu
march began led by a man on stilts who helped in faking the police
out when they tried to stop us by saying "Right!" when
the police blocked the left, and so on . . . all the way to Niketown
where people pounded on the windows until a few blocks more (passing
under a billboard sponsored by Adbusters) when the whole thing broke
up and a guy on the bullhorn said, "Thanks, guys, see
you tomorrow!"
And Tuesday, what a day it was! I
made the rounds downtown, checking out the rave in front of Barnes
& Noble and all the brave lines of Direct Action Networkers
blocking the paths of the delegates, then went to Memorial Stadium
and joined that group of 40 or 50 thousand or so which all came
downtown again, stood by the drum circle in front of Niketown when
they were kicking down the Niketown letters . . . the second wave
of tear gas (after the initial, unprovoked attack around ten a.m.
which set off
the vandals) happened down the street toward the Pike Place Market
. . . the next day I awoke to visions on tv of those very brave
souls getting arrested on 8th and Lenora--not even in the "no
protest zone"! [Note, of course, the rampant use of Orwellian
newspeak last week: "no protest zone" is actually "no
democracy zone", and "curfew" is a "Leave it
to Beaver"-esque term ("See ya before curfew Dad!")
to describe nothing less than martial law.] I quickly got
ready and went downtown and infiltrated the "zone", passed
by 3 people arrested on a corner just sitting there hands tied behind
their back (they called out, "Citizens, we are being unlawfully
detained . . . ") . . and several more sudden sit-ins
in the Big Store/No Protest district. One lady and her friend
were walking away from one of the scenes which had amassed some
onlookers and in response to a question her friend may have asked,
she said, "Naw, I can see it on tv when I get home." Buying
my latte that morning I overheard 2 delegate-looking people talking:
"Steel! Nobody cares about
steel!" They proceeded to guffaw. A woman lamented to the SBC
cashier: "That is so terrible what they did to Starbuck's!"
Down the street I came to an interview happening, it was Kevin
Danniger (msp?) of Global Exchange, who was very passionately and
eloquently expounding on the kids today who knew what was going
on, who were all wired up, and knew "that the old fat white
men in Washington have got to go!" The interview mostly
over, he got a cell call and excused himself . . . I eavesdropped:
"The police are rounding up all the leaders, man [me: what
they did in China when Clinton visited] . . . because they're
morons, man!" Another block away in the new downtown
police state a woman let out a cry . . . there was a scuffle and
a guy sez, "He hit a girl man!" A red-faced man
angrily walks away. I have a personal thing against wife-beaters
so I got hot on his tail for 3 blocks until I came up to him stopped
at an intersection. I took a slightly mendacious approach,
"Hi, I'm a member of the press," I said. "Did
you hit a girl?" "No!" he said. "She
was wearing a bandanna over her face and I just reached out and
slipped it off her. I shouldn't even have come down here today!"
I let him go.
Another impromptu demonstration started
up across from Nordstrom's, clearly in the "no democracy zone".
This time I joined in. "This is what democracy
looks like!" became the primo chant, directed with passion
at the onlookers who may have been brainwashed by the moronic local
media who called the protester "mobsters" (Fox), and generally
attempted to ostracize the protesters in all the weeks leading up
to the event and at least half the week into it. We marched
east to the water to join the labor march already in progress and
went down to the docks where we watched speakers in the cold and
drizzly rain but warm inside with fire and democratic gusto. I
broke to get coffee and a big cookie and when I came back a big
group was on it's way back west to the Convention Center and the
"no-democracy zone". I helped lead them up the stairs
because I knew the way and when they were going to go right I stepped
in and suggested going left because that would take us by Victor
Steinbrueck (msp?) Park and the Pike Place Market, which they did.
We then took a right skirting the market and up the hill.
I wanted to take a right on 2nd, saying we couldn't go straight
because that led to the Westin (where Clinton and others were staying
which would bring out the heavy heat), but they didn't go right
until 3rd. On 3rd I stood in the doorway of Beatty's Books
with the old couple who run it, friends of mine, and we watched
the procession go by. When I went to join them 2 blocks away
the tear gas bombs were already going off in front of McDonald's,
on 3rd and not in the no-democracy zone.
I managed to not get arrested and that night
when I thought I was done for the night having called everyone
I knew across the country to tell them what was going on over here
. . . I heard bombs going off in my neighborhood, Capitol Hill.
I rushed up to the Broadway where many of my neighbors had
amassed to protest the invading Darth Vaders up here. We shouted,
"Go Home" to them and they pepper-sprayed us and concussion
bombed us long into the night. After a few rounds of the gas
I came back here to my home and heard the bombs going off till 2
am. I couldn't sleep, I was so enraged. I felt somewhat
guilty for not being arrested with the group I had a small part
in leading (the steelworkers, mostly, from the dock) earlier that
day and decided to get arrested the next day. The Direct Action
Network and others met at the Community College on Broadway on Capitol
Hill but by that time a lot must have hit the fan in the mayor's
office and we were given a police escort which led us down around
the "no-democracy zone" to the Victor Steinbrueck park
where Ralph Nader and Vandava Shiva and Jim Hightower, among others,
roused us up with their words and the crowd split off into 2 more
demonstrations--I went with the one going downtown to Weyerhauser,
where we were stopped by another battalion of Vaders. A man
walked by me, "Are you Tom Hayden?" I asked. "Yes,"
he said. "Nice to meet you," I said. "Nice
to meet you, too," he said. We then went to the King
County Jail where we circled it and shouted "Let them go!"
and the first sit-in there began. By Thursday the People had
won. On Friday I joined the labor march from Labor Temple
and back but the People's victory had already decidedly happened
by Thursday . . .
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